Can A Treadmill Really Help You Lose Weight?

A treadmill is an effective piece of exercise equipment for burning calories and shedding pounds. In addition to its weight-loss benefits, a treadmill can help build muscular endurance and cardiovascular strength and stamina. Understanding the different workouts you can create on a treadmill will let you choose workouts that help you lose weight.

Weight Loss

For each 1 lb. of weight you want to lose, you'll need to burn 500 calories more each day than you eat. A healthy weight loss rate for women is 1 to 2 lbs. per week, while men should aim for 2 to 3 lbs. per week, says registered dietitian Page Love, owner of Nutrifit Sport Therapy in Atlanta, Georgia. Treadmills with electronic consoles provide data that includes calories burned, so you can keep working until you've met your goal.

Treadmill Choices

Treadmills are either motorized or manual. Most motorized treadmills come with electronic consoles that let you create various workouts, such as a steady walk on a level incline, cardio workouts at a faster pace and workouts with peaks and valleys that use automatic changes in the treadmill's speed and incline.

Tracking Calories

If you have an electronic console on your treadmill, you can track your calories by inputting personal data, such as your age, weight and sex into the machine. If you have a manual treadmill, you may want to buy a heart rate monitor to help you track calories burned during your workout. If the treadmill has a speedometer, you can estimate your calories burned using an exercise chart. For example, MayoClinic.com estimates a 160-lb. person will burn 183 calories per hour walking at a speed of 2 mph. A 200-lb. person will burn 228 calories at that speed. If those exercisers raise their speed to 3.5 mph, they will burn 277 and 246 calories per hour respectively. Jogging at 5 mph would burn 584 and 637 calories per hour, while running at 8 mph would burn 986 and 1,229 calories.

Workouts

A fat-burning workout, so-called because most of the calories burned at this pace come from fat, is moderate intensity, or "brisk," as the American Heart Association describes it. This level of exercise is good for those just starting an exercise program and who need to build stamina before they can do more intense exercise that burns more calories. Aerobic exercise occurs when you reach 70 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, and is comparable to jogging or running, depending on your level of fitness. Well-conditioned athletes can burn even more calories per minute on a treadmill by sprint training. These workouts include short -- two minutes or less -- sprints, followed by two minutes of slower jogging or walking. The AHA recommends at least an hour of cardio exercise, several times weekly, for weight loss and maintenance.